Weekly Ocean News

WEEK ONE: 6-10 September 2010

Items of Interest --

• Follow a research cruise -- Dr. Jim Brey, Director the American Meteorological Society's Education Program, is currently participating on a 12-day research cruise called "Ship of Rock 2010" on the waters of the eastern North Pacific off the coast of British Columbia's Vancouver Island on the research vessel JOIDES Resolution. This vessel is operated by the Joint Oceanographic Institutions for Deep Earth Sampling (JOIDES) will be conducting drilling operations along the Cascadia fault. He will be posting a blog describing his onboard experiences. [JOIDES Resolution website]
• New geosynchronous environmental weather satellite passes the tests -- NASA and NOAA project managers for the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) mission recently announced that the GOES-15 satellite launched by NASA in March 2010 has successfully completed five months of on-orbit testing and has been accepted into service with the NOAA fleet of operational weather satellites. This satellite, formerly known as GOES-P, is the third and final spacecraft in the GOES N-P Series, which will be then superseded by a new generation GOES R series to become operational between 2012 and 2025. [NOAA News] [NASA GOES-P]

Ocean in the News:

• Eye on the tropics ---
The weather across the tropical ocean basins in the North Atlantic and the North Pacific remained active during the last week.
• In the North Atlantic basin, former Hurricane Danielle lost its tropical characteristics and "became extratropical" last Monday over the North Atlantic east-southeast of Nova Scotia. Before the transition, this tropical cyclone (a low pressure system that forms over tropical waters) had little temperature variation in the horizontal direction, but when it became an extratropical (or midlatitude) storm, air from midlatitudes and polar regions was entrained in the low, resulting in the formation of a front. Additional information on Danielle and supporting satellite images can be found on the NASA Hurricane Page.
  Hurricane Earl, which became a category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale, drew the nation's attention during this past week as it swept along the East Coast, accompanied by strong winds and high surf. This tropical cyclone had developed as a tropical depression near the Cape Verde Islands at the midpoint of the week before last and traveled westward across the tropical North Atlantic. By early last week, Hurricane Earl, the third hurricane of the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season, began curving to the northwest where it passed just to the north of the US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico early last week. By late in the week, it moved to the north-northwest and approached North Carolina's Outer Banks before curving to the north-northeast. By Saturday, this hurricane had weakened to Tropical Storm Earl before making landfall in Nova Scotia. Subsequently, Earl became an extratropical low-pressure system. A digital photograph made by an astronaut onboard the International Space Station provides an oblique view of Hurricane Earl from space when the hurricane was a major category 4 hurricane. [NASA Earth Observatory] The NASA Hurricane Page has additional satellite images of Hurricane Earl along with accompanying information.
  Tropical Storm Fiona followed in the wake of Hurricane Earl last week. After forming in the tropical Atlantic east of the Leeward Islands, Fiona traveled initially toward the west northwest before curving to the northwest and then to the north. By the weekend, this tropical storm weakened and became a tropical depression before dissipating close to Bermuda. See the NASA Hurricane Page for additional information.
  Tropical Storm Gaston, the seventh named tropical cyclone of the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season, formed west-southwest of the Cape Verde Islands at the midpoint of last week. This minimal tropical storm was short lived as it dissipated after two days as it traveled to the northwest. Additional information concerning Gaston appears on the NASA Hurricane Page.
• In the eastern North Pacific basin, a tropical depression identified as Tropical Depression 10-E formed off the southwestern coast of Mexico near the end of last week. After traveling to the northwest, this depression weakened and dissipated slightly more than 24 hours after formation. See the NASA Hurricane Page for additional details.
• In the western North Pacific, Tropical Storm Lionrock traveled northward across the South China Sea early last week. By midweek, it had made landfall along the eastern China coast. See the NASA Hurricane Page for additional details.
  Typhoon Kompasu formed over the western North Pacific Ocean at the start of last week, intensifying into a major category 3 typhoon (equivalent to hurricane) on the Saffir-Simpson Scale as it traveled to the northwest across the Yellow Sea. This typhoon curved to the north and then northeast, crossing the Korean Peninsula by midweek. Additional information on Typhoon Kompasu can be found on the NASA Hurricane Page.
  Tropical Storm Namtheun was a short-lived tropical cyclone that formed near Taiwan early last week and traveled to the west-southwest making landfall along the eastern mainland China coast. The NASA Hurricane Page has some additional information on this tropical storm.
  Tropical Storm Malou formed at the midpoint of last week over the waters of the western North Pacific near Guam. This minimal tropical storm traveled toward the northwest and was located to the southwest of the Japanese Archipelago by late Sunday (local time). See the NASA Hurricane Page.
• Historic Global Hawk Flight made over Earl --
An unmanned aircraft was flown for the first time over the upper sections of a hurricane last week when scientists with NASA’s Genesis and Rapid Intensification Processes (GRIP) experiment deployed the Global Hawk drone into Hurricane Earl. Instruments onboard the Global Hawk collected data as a part of the experiment's objective of studying how hurricanes form, strengthen and then weaken. The autonomous Global Hawk left NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center, at Edwards, CA late Wednesday, flew across the continent and made observations off the Florida coast seven hours later to spend most of Thursday flying over Earl before returning to California later that night. The Global Hawk was accompanied by NASA's DC-8 aircraft, which had made three previous flights into Earl. [NASA’s GRIP Hurricane Mission] An image was made showing the temperature distribution across the eye of Hurricane Earl, made from data collected from the High-Altitude Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit Sounding Radiometer (HAMSR) instrument carried onboard the Global Hawk drone as it passed over Earl, at the time a category 2 hurricane last Thursday. [NASA JPL]
• Another oil rig fire in the Gulf --
An oil rig in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico approximately 80 miles off the Louisiana coast experienced an explosion and subsequent fire last Thursday morning. The fire was extinguished and the 13 crewmembers were rescued from the platform. The US Coast Guard reported that no oil sheen was detected on the Gulf waters. [CNN] An image made within two hours of the explosion by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite shows the smoke plume that emanated from the fire. [NASA Earth Observatory]
• Gulf fisheries reopened --
During the past week, NOAA officials announced that following consultation with colleagues in the Food and Drug Administration and the Gulf Coast states, they have reopened more than 8000 square miles of Gulf waters to commercial and recreational fishing. A large section of the Gulf has been closed because of the oil that has spread across the Gulf of Mexico following last spring's Deepwater Horizon/BP oil spill. On Thursday, more than 5000 square miles of offshore waters had been reopened that extended from southeastern Louisiana to the western Florida Panhandle [NOAA News] and on Friday more than 3000 square miles offshore of the western Florida Panhandle reopened. [NOAA News] As of that date, approximately 17 percent of the Federal waters of the Gulf remained closed to commercial and recreational fishing.
• Spread of oil spill successfully predicted by new method --
A scientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara and colleagues were able to successfully predict up to three days in advance that oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill would reach various locations in the Gulf of Mexico based upon a new method that they developed for forecasting the spread of oil and other contaminants. [EurekAlert!]
• Algal bloom in Barents Sea seen from space --
A natural-color image obtained at the end of August from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on NASA's Aqua satellite shows a broad area of phytoplankton (algal) bloom in the near surface waters of the Barents Sea off the coastline of northern Russia and Scandinavia. [Earth Observatory]
• A warning given of a hypoxia threat in the nation's coastal waters --
An interagency group from the environmental and scientific federal agencies that included members of the NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science delivered a report entitled, "Scientific Assessment of Hypoxia in U.S. Coastal Waters" to Congressional leaders last week that provided an assessment of the increased frequency of "dead zones" or oxygen deficient areas in US coastal waters and outlines steps that could be taken by researchers and policy makers to research the long-term trend in increased hypoxia. [NOAA News] [USGS Newsroom]
• Disaster declaration extended for California salmon fisheries industry --
Last week, US Department of Commerce Secretary Gary Locke announced that he has ordered an extension to the disaster declaration for California salmon fishermen due to the reduction in commercial fishery revenues following low numbers of spawning Chinook salmon that have been returning to the Sacramento River this year. [NOAA News]
• Tracking giant iceberg's movement by satellite --
Researchers have been monitoring the images obtained from radar instruments on the European Space Agency's Envisat satellite to tracking the movement of a giant iceberg into the entering Nares Strait, which lies between Canada's Ellesmere Island and Greenland, connecting the Arctic Ocean's Lincoln Sea with Baffin Bay. [ESA]
• ICESat satellite completes its successful mission --
Scientists at NASA 's Goddard Space Flight Center and the Orbital Debris Program Office recently reported that NASA's Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation (ICESat) satellite had reentered the Earth's atmosphere and debris fell to the surface over the Barents Sea last Monday morning. The ICESat, which was launched in 2003, had provided the scientific community with high resolution data from the Earth's polar region that permitted measurements of the changes in the mass of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets, polar sea ice thickness, vegetation-canopy heights, and the heights of clouds and aerosols. These data also improved modeling of ice sheet and sea ice dynamics. [NASA ICESat]
• Horseshoe crab decline may be attributed to climate change --
Scientists with the US Geological Survey and colleagues report that their research of the historical trends in the population sizes of horseshoe crabs appears to the parallel changes in climate since the Last Ice Age (approximately 11,000 years ago) and that a distinct decline in numbers could continue due to predicted changes in climate, especially associated with projected increases in global temperature and accompanying sea-level rises. [USGS Newsroom]
• Evidence found for a trans-Antarctic seaway --
Scientists from the British Antarctic Survey who have been participating in the Census of Antarctic Marine Life recently reported that their analysis of tiny marine animals appear to suggest a trans-Antarctic seaway that may have been present during the last interglacial period (approximately 125,000 years ago) across a region now covered by a 2-km ice layer. They based their findings upon finding striking similarities in seabed colonies of bryozoans, or tiny marine filter feeders, from widely separated continental shelves of the Ross and Weddell Seas around Antarctica. [EurekAlert!]
• Completion of Pacific Regional Center gets a financial boost --
NOAA officials recently announced that a Chicago (IL) construction company had received a $131.9 million American Recovery and Reinvestment Act contract to construct the main facility at NOAA’s new Pacific Regional Center on Ford Island in Honolulu, HI. This center will consolidate NOAA’s programs supporting management of coastal and marine resources and weather, tsunami, and climate prediction in the Pacific. [NOAA News]
• An All-Hazards Monitor --
This Web portal provides the user information from NOAA on current environmental events that may pose as hazards such as tropical weather, drought, floods, marine weather, tsunamis, rip currents, Harmful Algal Blooms (HABs) and coral bleaching. [NOAAWatch]
• Global and US Hazards/Climate Extremes --
A review and analysis of the global impacts of various weather-related events, to include drought, floods and storms during the current month. [NCDC]
• Earthweek --
Diary of the Planet [earthweek.com] Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader.

REPORTS FROM THE FIELD --

A request: If you have some ocean-related experience that you would like to share with other DataStreme Ocean participants, please send them to the email address appearing at the bottom of this document for possible inclusion in a News file. Thank you. EJH

Concept of the Week: Touring the DataStreme Ocean website

NOTE: This Concept for the Week is a repeat of that which appeared in last week's Weekly Ocean News.

Welcome to DataStreme Ocean! You are embarking on a study of the world ocean and the role of the ocean in the Earth system. This unique teacher enhancement course focuses on the flow and transformations of energy and water into and out of the ocean, the internal properties and circulation of the ocean, interactions between the ocean and the other components of the Earth system, and the human/societal impacts on and responses to those interactions. Throughout this learning experience, you will be using the DataStreme Ocean website to access and interpret a variety of environmental information, including recent observational data. The objective of this initial Concept of the Week is to explore features of the DS Ocean website.

On Monday of each week of the course, we will post the current Weekly Ocean News that includes Ocean in the News (a summary listing of recent events related to the ocean), Concept of the Week (an in-depth analysis of some topic related to the ocean in the Earth system), and Historical Events (a list of past events such as tsunamis or specific advances in the understanding of oceanography). When appropriate, a feature called Supplemental Information-In Greater Depth will be provided on some topic related to the principal theme of the week.

You will use the DS Ocean website to access and download the weekly "Current Ocean Studies" (plus supporting images) that complement Investigations found in your Ocean Studies Investigations Manual. These materials should be available Monday morning. Click the appropriate links to download and print these electronic Current Ocean Studies and answer forms as well as your Chapter Progress and Investigations Response forms.

The body of the DS Ocean website provides links to the Earth System, information on Physical & Chemical, Geological, and Biological aspects of the ocean, Atmosphere/Ocean Interaction, the Great Lakes, and extras–a glossary of terms, maps, educational links, and DataStreme Ocean information. Following each section is a link to other sites that examine the various subsystems of the Earth system. Let's take a quick tour to become more familiar with the DS Ocean website.

Under Physical & Chemical, click on Sea Surface Temperatures. This image uses a color scale to depict the global pattern of sea surface temperatures (SSTs) (in degrees Celsius) averaged over a recent 7-day period and based on measurements by infrared sensors onboard Earth-orbiting satellites. (Depending on your browser, you may have to place your mouse cursor on the slide bar to the right and scroll down to view the entire image.) Compare SSTs in the Northern Hemisphere with those in the Southern Hemisphere. Return to the DS Ocean website.

Under Geological, click on Current Earthquake Activity. The USGS Current World Seismicity page provides a global map of the locations of seismic (earthquake) events color-coded for the past seven days. The size of the squares represents the magnitude of an earthquake. Note how earthquakes are concentrated along the margin of the Pacific Ocean. Details of recent earthquakes can be found by clicking on their map squares. Return to the DS Ocean website.

The ocean is home to a wide variety of habitats and organisms. Under Biological, click on Ocean "Color" (Productivity). This is a satellite-derived (SeaWiFS) color-coded map of biological productivity in the surface waters of the world ocean averaged from the year 1978 to date. Orange and red indicates the highest productivity and dark blue and violet indicate the lowest productivity. Note the vast areas of relatively low productivity over the central regions of the subtropical ocean basins. Individual months within this period may be chosen for viewing. Now return to the DS Ocean website.

Under Atmosphere/Ocean Interaction, click on TRMM Tropical Rainfall. The TRMM (Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission) page includes color-coded maps of the Monthly Mean Rainrate (in mm per day) across the tropics for the last 30 days ending on the present date. Changes in rainfall are linked to large-scale shifts in the atmosphere/ocean circulation in the tropics. Now return to the DS Ocean website.

Take a few minutes when you have time to browse the other data and information sources available via the DS Ocean website. You should "bookmark" ("favorites") this page on your computer. Return frequently to learn more about the many resources on the ocean in the Earth system. Bon voyage!

Concept of the Week: Questions

1. The latest global sea surface temperature map indicates that SSTs are generally higher over the [(western)(eastern)] tropical Pacific Ocean.
2. The USGS map of Current Earthquake Activity indicates that earthquakes appear to be more common along the [(east)(west)] coast of North America.

Historical Events

• 6 September 1522...The Magellan expedition completed its historical circumnavigation of the globe as one of Ferdinand Magellan's five ships, the Vittoria, arrived at Sanlýcar de Barrameda in Spain with 17 other crewmembers and four Indians. Magellan, who lost his life in April 1521 in the Philippines, set sail from Spain with 270 seamen on 20 September 1519 in an effort to find a western sea route to the rich Spice Islands of Indonesia. (The History Channel)
• 7 September 1934...US Coast Guard (USCG) vessels responded to a fire aboard the liner Morro Castle six miles off the New Jersey coast. This disaster, which resulted in the loss of 133 of the 455 passengers and crew, led to a Senate investigation and subsequent changes in maritime safety regulations. (USCG Historian's Office)
• 8 September 1900...The greatest weather disaster in U.S. records occurred when a hurricane struck Galveston, TX. Waves fifteen feet high washed over the island demolishing or carrying away buildings, and drowning more than 6000 persons. The hurricane destroyed more than 3600 houses, and total damage was more than $30 million. Winds to 120 mph, and a twenty-foot storm surge accompanied the hurricane. Following the storm, the surf was three hundred feet inland from the former water line. The hurricane claimed another 1200 lives outside of the Galveston area. (8^th-9^th) (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)
  Editor's note: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) posted a webpage commemorating the Galveston, TX hurricane of 1900. This page contains links to historic photos and excerpts of an eyewitness description of storm by Isaac Cline, the chief forecaster of the Galveston U.S. Weather Bureau Office.
• 9 September 1945 - A "computer bug" is first identified and named by LT Grace Murray Hopper while she was on Navy active duty in 1945. It was found in the Mark II Aiken Relay Calculator at Harvard University. The operators affixed the moth to the computer log, where it still resides, with the entry: "First actual case of bug being found." They "debugged" the computer, first introducing the term. (Naval History Center)
• 10 September 1919...A hurricane struck the Florida Keys drowning more than 500 persons. (David Ludlum)
• 10 September 1965...Hurricane Betsy slammed Louisiana with wind gusting to 130 mph at Houma, resulting in 58 deaths and over 17,500 injured. The storm surge and flooding from torrential rains made Betsy the first billion-dollar hurricane with losses exceeding $1.4 billion.
• 11 September 1961...Very large and slow moving Hurricane Carla made landfall near Port Lavaca, TX. Carla battered the central Texas coast with wind gusts to 175 mph, and up to 16 inches of rain, and spawned a vicious tornado (F4 on the Fujita tornado intensity scale) which swept across Galveston Island killing eight persons and destroying 200 buildings. A storm surge of up to 18.5 feet inundated coastal areas and Bay City was deluged with 17.1 inches of rain. The hurricane claimed 45 lives, and caused $300 million in damage. The remnants of Carla produced heavy rain in the Lower Missouri Valley and southern sections of the Upper Great Lakes Region. (David Ludlum) (Storm Data) (Intellicast)
• 11 September 1992...Hurricane Iniki, the third most damaging hurricane in US history, hit the Hawaiian Islands of Kauai and Oahu. Six people died as a result of the hurricane.
• 12 September 1775...The Independence Hurricane caught many fishing boats on the Grand Banks off Newfoundland killing 4000 seamen, most from Britain and Ireland. (The Weather Doctor)
• 12 September 1857...The S.S. Central America sank while in the midst of a hurricane off the North Carolina coast after beginning to take on water the previous day (11^th). Approximately 400 people onboard were lost, the greatest single loss from a commercial ship due to a hurricane. (Accord Weather Calendar)
• 12 September 1960...Hurricane Donna made landfall on central Long Island and then tracked across New England. Wind gusts reached 140 mph at the Blue Hills Observatory in Milton, MA and 130 mph at Block Island, RI. MacDowell Dam in New Hampshire recorded 7.25 inches of rain. Although a record tide of 6.1 feet occurred at the Battery in New York City, elsewhere fortunately the storm did not make landfall at the high tides so its effects were minimized. This was the first hurricane to affect every point along the East Coast from Key West, FL to Caribou, ME. (Intellicast)
• 12 September 1979...Hurricane Frederick smashed into the Mobile Bay area of Alabama packing 132-mph winds. Wind gusts to 145 mph were reported as the eye of the hurricane moved over Dauphin Island, AL, just west of Mobile. Frederick produced a fifteen-foot storm surge near the mouth of Mobile Bay. Winds gusted to hurricane force at Meridian, MS although the city is 140 miles inland. The hurricane was responsible for five fatalities and was the costliest in U.S. history to date causing $2.3 billion in damage. (David Ludlum) (The Weather Channel)

Return to DataStreme Ocean website

Prepared by AMS DS Ocean Central Staff and Edward J. Hopkins, Ph.D., email hopkins@meteor.wisc.edu
© Copyright, 2010, The American Meteorological Society.